In 2016, on the eve of the World Series, during the holiday of Sukkot, amid
a nasty and unsettling presidential election, I found myself watching
baseball like I hadn’t since childhood. The Cubs, after a 108-year drought,
won the World Series title that year. This year, as I begin to ease into SF
Giants fandom (gimme a break; I’ve only been in the Bay Area for 32 years),
and as we head toward post-season, I think back on the lessons I learned
from loving the Cubs, leaving the Cubs, and returning to the Cubs. I
decided to repost this essay, written on the eve of the 2016 World Series.